1. Field of Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to construction in general and in particular to a method and apparatus for engaging a member within a soil formation.
2. Description of Related Art
At many worksites, it is frequently necessary to engage a construction member within the ground for the purposes of securing the member therein or to reinforce or retain a portion of the ground behind the member. Such members may commonly be located within the soil formation by pile driving wherein the member is forcibly pressed into the ground by a backhoe, pile driver or the like. One example of when such methods may be utilized is for locating pilings within the ground.
One disadvantage of such methods is that the force required to drive such a member into the ground can be high requiring relatively large equipment or relatively small members to effectively penetrate the ground. It will be appreciated that such limitations often limit the size of ground penetrating members that may be used in some locations where larger equipment is not able to access.
Another common method of locating the member within the soil formation is to excavate the location where the member is to be located and thereafter backfilling against the member. In particular, one situation in which such methods are used is where it is necessary to excavate a hole to access a buried structure or to expose a location where the work is to occur. In many instances, it is not practical to excavate a large amount of soil due to the proximity of other structures or time constraints. In such circumstances, it is common to excavate a relatively narrow hole or trench and provide reinforcement or shoring to the trench or hole walls to prevent their collapse.
Conventional shoring methods have been to provide timbers or metal plates braced against opposing sides of the trench or hole or braced to a bottom of the hole or trench. Such conventional shoring has several disadvantages. In particular, shoring using a plurality of timbers may be time consuming and inaccurate to install as each timber must be located individually. Furthermore, after the timers are located, they must be secured to each other and thereafter braced against an opposite wall. These multiple steps increase the amount of time required to shore the excavation.
Other methods have been to provide a shoring structure comprising a pair of spaced apart steel plates having a plurality of struts therebetween. Disadvantageously, such shoring structures are also required to either be assembled within the excavation or pre-assembled and lowered into the excavation as a whole. Where the assembled structure is lowered into the excavation as a whole, it may be possible for the shoring structure to partially collapse or otherwise impact and thereby disturb the excavation wall.
An additional difficulty with current excavation shoring methods, is that it is necessary to excavate the location before the shoring is put into place. In many soil types, such as, for example, moist or soft soils, such unshored excavations may be prone to wall collapse before the shoring can be properly located. The struts and other bracing members between shoring walls may also limit the access that workers and equipment has to the bottom of the shored excavation.